Inspire-Design-Create

Category: DIY

We have been in our new house for 5 months now and I have managed to witness the garden in late summer to mid winter. This has given me a pretty good idea of how much sun and shadow different areas of the garden get.

Also, I now have a good idea about different wind directions and which parts of the garden are protected and which ones aren’t.

So, I decided the best way to proceed was do up a plan, listing each plant variety (as much as I could) and draw up their placements.

I will be redesigning the backyard so as to have a direction for my landscaping. We would love to have a combination of natives as well as fruit trees. We also want to add possible features such as a fire pit and pool and so I will need to see if I can design a space for them.

It’s a modest house and so, this made it all the more important to create a fantastic first impression.

So these are the things that we did to get our house sold within 3 day of going on the market, for a price that we were more than happy with.

De-clutter:

This is very important. As many of you know, as you settle down into life and a house, you find that you accumulate , what’s best described as…..Stuff. We hired a storage room and only allowed up to 3 large items in each room. We also got rid of 95% of our nick knacks and were very selective about the ones that we kept on display.

What is that smell….oh wait….it’s the dog.

Due in part, to fair skin, and being allergic to almost everything, our dog in an inside dog. He is washed regularly but still you can smell him in the house. After much research, the best techniques we used to create a pleasant smelling house for inspections where as this:

The night before inspections, we used a subtle smelling carpet cleaning powder which we left on the carpet overnight, then vacuumed early the next morning, which allowed the residual smell to dissipate.

We aired out all the cushions for several hour before the inspection and wiped down our faux leather lounge with nice but subtle smelling spray cleaner.

We put fresh sheets and doona covers on all the beds.

We vacuumed and mopped all the floors.

And lastly, we chose a very subtle smelling, room fragrance like a Reed Diffuse kit. We chose Circa Home’s Along the shore but most Homeware stores have these and have a variety of fragrances you can choose from.

Scrub, Scrub, Scrub

It’s important to make sure everything is clean. Sometimes the best thing you can do, to help sell your house, doesn’t cost anything except for the cleaning products and some elbow grease. Scrub walls and floors, wash windows, wipe down doors and skirtings.

It’s easy to just think about the obvious rooms. Bathrooms, Kitchens, Lounge rooms, etc. But don’t forget areas such as Entry porches, verandas and Hallways.

Selectively Accessorise

It’s amazing what a difference a carefully placed painting or fruit bowl can make, but keep it minimal and only add it if it will enhance the room, not make it look cluttered.

It’s all about the overall impression

Lastly, we weren’t willing to replace all our furniture to get a better look. But we felt we didn’t have too either. By carefully choosing the furniture that would stay, even though it didn’t all match or was well used, you can still create the impression of carefully chosen style. If you look carefully at the rug, you will notice that it’s actually warped from the time I washed it and it stretched out of shape, And the spare bed has a camping mattress on it as this bed had been in storage and didn’t have a mattress with it but we felt it was important to show a bed in the room.

From here, all I can say is, I wish you best of luck in the sale of your house.